STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

As day dawned over the mountains surrounding Sun Valley, a 35-foot flatbed trailer carrying a 28-foot-long cylindrical hulk pulled out of a garage labeled “Area 52 Restricted Area” at Tom and Elizabeth Tierney’s River Grove Farm.

The pickup truck hauling the 6,000-pound trailer and its mysterious looking cargo headed north from the hanger with its “UFO Parking” sign to Ketchum where it parked across the street from the Sun Valley Culinary institute.

Following a brunch of biscuits and mushroom gravy, eggs, bacon and cinnamon rolls, three commanding officers, first responders and members of the USS Idaho Commissioning Committee filed out of the Sun Valley Culinary Institute to have their pictures taken with the submarine,

The commissioning of the USS Idaho submarine is still a year away. But the crew of the newly constructed submarine and members of the USS Idaho Commissioning Committee took to the road this past weekend to spread awareness of the once-in-a-hundred-year project.

They took the submarine to The Community Library, the Sun Valley Club and other venues  where they could get pictures of the sub with signs saying Sun Valley—a nod to Sun Valley’s role during World War II as a Navy convalescent hospital.

The submarine was built over the course of two years by a Pocatello Navy veteran who welded together two fuel tanks from an old fighter jet, then added a nose and tail and fins. It sat around rusting before it was brought to Tierney’s “man cave” to be refurbished.

“We rescued it, spending two months working on it,” said Tierney. “As a Vietnam veteran in the Air Force, I have nothing but pride for our U.S. Navy.

Commander Chad Guillerault and two crew members visited Idaho this week to familiarize themselves with the boat’s namesake state.

Gov. Brad Little welcomed the crew to the State Capitol where he unveiled a new Idaho license plate featuring a submarine with the words “The Gem of the Fleet.” The plate will be available at DMV offices beginning July 1.

Last summer two crew members who will serve as chefs on the submarine spent two weeks at the Sun Valley Culinary Institute working with Chef Melissa Mauselle to learn to prepare Idaho foods they could serve at receptions.

The Culinary Institute has a binder of recipes they concocted, including Potato Gnocchi, Potato Pull-Apart Bread, Idaho Beignets made with mashed potatoes, Idaho Trout, Idaho Rack of Lamb and such Idaho Basque dishes as Ham Croquettes, Red Bean Stew and Paella.

The binder even offers background on Idaho products like potatoes, describing how starchy potatoes are drier and fluffy, making them great for baking and frying, while thinner-skinned waxy potatoes are best used in soups, salads, casseroles and scalloped potatoes and how purple potatoes and Yukon golds are great mashed, roasted or boiled.

The submarine named for Idaho is the newest of America’s fleet. The Virginia-class nuclear-powered sub is the first to feature a state-of-the-art magnetohydrodynamic drive, which allows the craft to move completely silently in both deep and shallow waters.

The submarine was christened in Connecticut with a bottle of water that crew members  collected from nearby Redfish Lake and Lake Pend Oreille where the Navy does acoustic research.

The high stealth warship boasts capabilities unimaginable just a few years ago, many of which were developed in Idaho. Among them propulsion systems developed by Idaho National Laboratory.

“It’s beautiful in the water—brand new and shiny,” said Guillerault. “It’s pretty much done. It’s undergoing testing right now, including making sure it’s steering right and that the  cradles where the torpedo sit move up and down properly. We’re about to start up the nuclear reactor for the first time to make sure it operates as designed--we’ll have two months of testing just for that.”

Guillerault, who has served on three submarines, said he is also supervising the training of his 150 crew members as they move onto the boat in August.

“A lot of the crew members come straight from school so we need to make sure they’re trained in driving the ship, maintenance. They’ll get personal time, as well—cribbage is a big thing, along with video games. The coolest thing about being on board a submarine is when you surface and watch dolphins jump up and down and nibbling on what grows on the boat.”  

The boat will be assigned to the waters around Connecticut and Florida, and it will make trips to the North Atlantic for scientific experiments in the Arctic.

It will also do intelligence gathering, reconnaissance and surveillance, carrier and expeditionary strike group protection, mine detection and mine laying and SEAL operations.

The submarine brunch was a prelude to three concerts planned for Aug. 13-15 in Ketchum, the South Valley and the Valley Club, said Bill Potter.

The concerts will feature The Victory Belles, a vocal trio from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans that performs the music of the 1940s. The group will perform noontime concerts on the days that conflict with the Sun Valley Music Festival, Potter said. And they’re learning Idaho-inspired songs, including “Sun Valley Serenade and “Let’s Choo Choo Choo to Idaho.”

Learn more at https://ussidahocommittee.org/.